Thursday, April 23, 2009

Early morning...


It's early, still dark outside when I rise this morning to start our daily routine. Across the hall to the laundry to start the first load (of the many that will get done today), picking up dropped articles of clothing as I make my rounds through the bedrooms checking on the little people still sleeping there. I find my way to Bird's room who pleads for a few more minutes under the warmth of her quilts. Still gathering I find a stray cup here, a shoe there, all left randomly around the house; evidence of the family that calls this place home. In the breaking early light I feel the temptation to play the martyr, I am not the maid, why do they just leave things lay and think I will pick them up? but then I stop and breathe, it is becoming more of a habit now, I am trying to see these things, the stuff I gather every morning as evidence. Evidence of the many blessings I have been given, still asleep in their beds. The blessings I am so grateful for my heart might burst and so I pray... A little prayer for the bandit who left the socks lay or for the princess who left her pink heels in the hallway. And in those prayers the bitterness starts to leave my mouth, I know the purpose I have been given and I am grateful. And even though it is still annoying, honestly some days more so than others, I try to put it into perspective. There will come a day all too soon when there won't be anything left lying around, when there will be only one load of a laundry a day and the dishes won't multiply in the sink. What will I feel? Will my short time with my children home be well spent? How will they look at me? Did I spend my precious time moaning and complaining? I pray not. And so every morning I ask for a strength that is not my own to do the best that I can for the people I love so dearly and I pray that my best is enough.

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